[ 2016-05-26 ]

ECG killer bills: NDC sheds crocodile tears
With the backlash of frequent upward adjustments
of electricity tariffs fuelled by the energy
sector levy and additional taxes hitting hard at
the government, the majority National Democratic
Congress (NDC) in Parliament, led by the Chief
Whip, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, has called on the
Mahama administration to urgently intervene.

He noted that if nothing was done about the
situation the overall effect would undermine the
government’s efforts at solving the power crisis
in the country.

The majority chief whip, who made the call on
behalf of the majority in an urgent statement on
the floor of Parliament yesterday, accused
officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana
(ECG) of doing the bidding of the opposition New
Patriotic Party (NPP) by intentionally
‘over-billing’ poor customers and thereby
causing disaffection for the government.

Muntaka again stated, “My brother, I am using
myself as an example. I used to pay GH¢300 a
month at home but now my bill is over GH¢1,200,
which is ridiculous.” He said that a friend who
had two different apartments was paying a total of
GH¢50,000 a month, wondering how ordinary
Ghanaians were going to bear the cost of such
astronomical increase in electricity bills.

“Mr Speaker, my information reveals that there
are errors in the billing of the newly installed
prepaid meters, administrative lapses due to poor
supervision of technical officers by their
superiors, deliberate effort by some unscrupulous
ECG officials to take advantage of the new billing
arrangements for personal gains and overestimation
of bills by consumers on post-paid meters,” he
observed.

Most MPs were of the view that the new tariffs
are killing Ghanaians and the government needs to
do something urgently about it.

The Speaker, Edward Doe Adjaho, asked the
leadership of the House to refer the matter to the
Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, since it
is a purely technical matter, for the committee to
invite the ECG officials to explain, after which
the committee would subsequently report back to
the plenary session.

But in a sharp rebuttal, the NPP MP for Atwima
Mponua and member of the Mines and Energy
Committee of Parliament, Isaac Kwame Asiamah, said
the government after recalcitrantly imposing
‘killer’ taxes on electricity consumption,
must not run away from the ripple effects.

According to Mr Asiamah, now that the government,
after realising that its IMF policies to increase
tariffs in readiness to privatise the ECG is
having a telling effect on the people who are
bitterly complaining about the sharp increases in
electricity bills and have threatened to vote the
government out of power, has resorted to its usual
propaganda and has pushed the blame on the ECG.

“How can the same company which has been
providing electricity services to the people of
the country over the years with the same personnel
in-charge now become a monster and work against
the same government managing it?” the NPP
parliamentarian queried, pointing out that
Muntaka’s story should be told to the marines
because Ghanaians are more intelligent for that.

He told a section of the parliamentary press
corps that the fact of the matter was that the
government had done its own survey ahead of the
coming general election and had come to the fair
conclusion that Ghanaians were going to vote
against it based on the unrealistic electricity
tariffs being imposed on them.

Electoral Defeat

“I know the government has commissioned an
election survey and has come to the stark reality
that the killer electricity bills will cause the
government to lose terribly even in its
strongholds, and therefore has resorted to this
unhealthy propaganda that ECG should be blamed for
the high electricity tariffs being imposed on
Ghanaians,” he noted.

He said President John Mahama had said on several
platforms, including the floor of Parliament, that
Ghanaians must now be ready to pay higher or
realistic electricity tariffs to save the energy
sector and went ahead to introduce the energy
sector levy bill which the majority NDC in
Parliament embraced and voted overwhelmingly for
its passage, even when “we in the minority
strongly spoke against it and said it will put
more burden on Ghanaians and so why are the NDC
MPs now crying wolf? They should stop shedding
crocodile tears for suffering Ghanaians.”

Mr Asiamah stressed, “The president must be
told to openly accept this blame and take full
responsibility because it is his own policies in
the energy sector which have brought us to this
level.” He added that the president must not
hide behind the majority in Parliament to continue
to throw dust into the people’s eyes since
Parliament is a place for records and that whoever
comes to tell lies there would be exposed as has
happened to the majority chief whip.

NDC Deceit

“What the majority chief whip is saying is very
deceitful and not the reality of the situation,”
he pointed out.

According to Mr Asiamah, he as a member of the
Mines and Energy Committee had said severally that
the cosmetic approach by the government in solving
the energy crisis was very artificial and would
definitely result in further dumsor, which
Ghanaians are experiencing now.

“The fact of the matter is that the government
does not have money to buy crude oil to power our
thermal plants and so it has to pass on the
responsibility to consumers who are being
unnecessarily taxed to pay high tariffs to enable
the government buy crude to generate power,” he
said, stressing that very soon many Ghanaians
would not be able to afford the cost of
electricity and the few companies left would
suffer.

“Ghanaians have seen the deceit and lies of
this government and are very much prepared to vote
them out of power and bring in a more competent
government led by Nana Akufo-Addo,” Asiamah
underscored.

Akufo-Addo’s Concerns

Nana Akufo-Addo, standard bearer of the NPP, in
recent statements, has been championing for
reduction in electricity tariffs, especially when
electricity bills are more than rent, saying that
it does not make sense for consumers to pay more
than rent.

He was bombarded with killer bills by a section
of Ghanaians during his recent campaign tour of
the country.

Meanwhile, the Public Utilities Regulatory
Commission (PURC), under pressure yesterday,
ordered the ECG to suspend its new software for
billing customers, claiming that over-billing had
been detected

Source - peacefmonline.com

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